I have been at Sheffield since 2010, and am probably best known as the only British Aztec historian, though my current research has branched out across the Atlantic, bringing Indigenous histories into a global framework. A thrilling, beautifully written and important book that changes how we look at transatlantic history, finally placing Indigenous peoples not on the side-lines but at the centre of the narrative. Highly recommended" —PETER FRANKOPAN For them, Europe comprised savage shores, a land of riches and marvels, yet perplexing for its brutal disparities of wealth and qualityof life, and its baffling beliefs. The story of these Indigenous Americans abroad is a story of abduction, loss, cultural appropriation, and, as they saw it, of apocalypse—a story that has largely been absent from our collective imagination of the times.

IB TOK class: On Savage Shores — overturning Columbus’s ‘discovery’ narrative on whatsapp (opens in a new window) A new publication aims to challenge the accepted narrative that modern global history began when the 'Old World' encountered the 'New'; when Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America in 1492. Some time in the early 1990s, during my first venture to grad school, I had a photo on my office wall of an Indigenous People’s demonstration in Cairns (or maybe Townsville) in North Queensland. Prominent in that mid-to-late-1980s picture was someone holding a placard that read ‘Aboriginal People discovered Captain Cook in 1770’. This agitated one of my fellow grad students, who was quite adamant that only the ‘explorer’ Cook could have made any discoveries because only he ‘left home’ and went looking, which caused me to wonder, who has agency here? I recall reflecting on the contrast with Alexander Fleming, whose ‘discovery’ of penicillin was, in the popular version of the story at least, the product of either an open window or a messy lab: it was a culture that by this popular account he stumbled on by accident when working on something else. Yet Fleming’s ‘discovery’ implicitly attributed agency to him, in a way my workmate refused to grant any agency to Indigenous people in what is now North Queensland. You can see me talking about early modern Dutch map-making in the BBC's The Beauty of Maps [at c.0.58 and 2.24] or hear me talking about the Valladolid Debate and the siege of Tenochtitlan on In Our Time. I have also appeared repeatedly on BBC History

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A] fascinating and fluidly written revisionist history . . . This innovative and powerful account breaks down long-standing historical assumptions”― PUBLISHERS WEEKLY starred review

Too much of the book is the author explaining why she was using certain words, even going so far as to write a paragraph on the word "stuff" instead of another word. My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for an advance copy of this book on the history of indigenous people traveling from the Americas to Europe, and what they saw and experienced. She also reveals that some of them never left. Their remains lie in cemeteries across Europe. In the churchyard of St Olave’s in the City of London, for example, not far from where Samuel Pepys was later to be laid to rest, are the graves of two Inuit people who died in London in the 1570s, having been abducted from their homeland in what is today Canada. IB TOK class: On Savage Shores — overturning Columbus’s ‘discovery’ narrative on linkedin (opens in a new window)

My first degree was Ancient and Modern History at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where I stayed on to read Women's Studies (MSt) before receiving my D.Phil. in Aztec history in 2004. Having been a Temporary Lecturer and then Research Fellow in Cambridge, I spent three years as Lecturer in Early Modern History at Leicester before moving to the lovely city of Sheffield, where I’ve been happily settled ever since. Research interests I have appeared on TV programmes for global broadcasters including the BBC, the Science Channel, Sky, Channel 4 and the Smithsonian Channel and have featured on In Our Time on Radio 4. Most recently, I went in search of the Lost Pyramids of the Aztecs, which was broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK. I have also acted as a historical consultant for several TV projects, including Heroes and Villains: Cortés for the BBC and Mankind: The Story of All of Us for the History Channel. In January 2023, On Savage Shores was the Radio 4 Book of the Week and I appeared discussing my research on Radio 4’s Start the Week and Radio 3’s Free Thinking. I also discussed my book on podcasts including Not Just the Tudors, History Hit, and BBC History Extra as well as being interviewed by the Smithsonian Magazine and BBC History Magazine.